Projects

The project’s goal is to empower science and technology parks to recognize specificities of innovation development in their regions and develop technology parks suited for their environment in order to encourage the founding of new startup companies.

By developing and strengthening the regional network of science and technology parks through this Project, with the support of the Government of Switzerland, support is given to the founding and development of new startups so they can compete with companies from the most developed parts of the world with their services and products while working from Serbia. At the same time, founding new startup companies increases the strength of the startup ecosystem and raises its visibility on the international scene.

The total budget of the Project is 3,9 million Euros, and more than 1/3 of these funds is dedicated to providing financial support to companies in the earliest development phases through the Raising Starts program.

A unique support program for startups in the earliest stages of development – Raising Starts – is planned within the project’s framework. The program will support the founding and development of up to 100 new startups in Belgrade, Niš, and Čačak.

For Niš and the region, the Project will help us continue the tradition of the technology center whose companies are successful and known on the global scale.

The Raising Starts program will be conducted by STP Belgrade in partnership with STP Niš and STP Čačak, with support from the Government of the Swiss Confederation.

More on the Raising Starts program here

When meeting STP Niš organizers and users, high schoolers who already have an affinity towards technical sciences will get a picture of perspectives opened to them in the context of a knowledge-based society. In that sense, it is important to illuminate the perspective that professionals in the fields of technical sciences can expect in a society based in knowledge for them. To that end, aside from STP Niš, the Association for Industrial Heritage and Promotion of Advanced Technologies is also engaged in the project. With their help, everything that was being produced in this region will be shown, visits to relevant scientific laboratories at the technical faculties will be organized, as well as visits to companies whose production is based on applying results from technical sciences.

The project is supposed to provide qucker and easier systematic changes through innovations, in order to achieve a better quality of life for citizens and the necessary decarbonization in the activities which critically affect the emission of greenhouse gasses. Since technological innovations by themselves will not achieve structural changes necessary for progressive growth over time, the project will combine different innovative methods in the fields of finances, business models, legislative frameworks, behavior perception and social norms, education and skills, new and existing technologies, citizen participation, market structure, etc.

The “Future Cities of Southeast Europe” should help the City of Niš, as well as other partner cities, to deal with these challenges and, as a response to them, conduct the process of transformation. Progress, quality of life, and climate resistances form the vision – which is possible to achieve by using natural and human resources with the right combination of ambitions, innovations, and other resources.

The agreed common mission is that the partner cities of the project become some of the best possible places in Europe for living, working, and staying in by 2025. Within the mission, the following radical goals were set:

• To bring the quality of air in our cities within the levels recommended by the World Health Organization by 2023.

• To achieve circular economy with zero emissions by 2030.

• To ensure that, by 2025, all members of our community have equal access to basic human goods: proper living conditions, healt insurance, education, mobility, food, water, green public spaces, security, and productive work possibilities.

• To be reducing the influence of warming on floods in our communities year by year.

This wide approach lead by the set mission requires a mass reshaping of thinking and the manner of work, because of which the City of Niš is working on creating a program package of actions and innovations, facing the existing challenges and using its possibilities in the largest possible number of certain key fields where quick and high-quality urban changes are needed.

EIT Climate-KIC is the EU’s climate innovation initiative, which accelerates the transition to a zero-carbon and resilient world by enabling systems transformation. EIT Climate-KIC was established in 2010 and is predominately funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.

The Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS) is the EIT Climate-KIC flagship initiative active across Southern and Central Eastern Europe. The EIT RIS is designed as a long-term initiative to strengthen the national and regional innovation ecosystems of moderate and modest countries, based on the EU Innovation Scoreboard.

The overarching mission is to contribute to the advancement of the climate adaptation and mitigation goals enabling the innovation performance of these countries and regions by strengthening the capacity of their innovation enablers and actors and linkages among them (such as business accelerators, incubators, start-ups, scale-ups, businesses including SMEs, agencies, educational and research institutions and their infrastructures, etc.) through facilitated cooperation at local, national and regional level.
The EIT Climate-KIC RIS program offers a concrete way to design, build, and deliver mission-oriented portfolios of related programs on skills development and learning, entrepreneurship, and innovation to catalyze fast decarbonization, provide future-proof jobs, and generate new jobs markets aligned to 1.5º and drive forward adaptation and resilience.